


But when the night is falling (you cannot find the light)

by SparrowFlight246



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I haven't done a multichapter in a serious hot minute and I am PSYCHED for this one, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Sensory Deprivation, more characters and tags will likely be added as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-21 10:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowFlight246/pseuds/SparrowFlight246
Summary: “Peter’s gone,” he says, breathless and rushed. “Someone—Jesus,Rhodey, somebody has the kid.”-Tony’s always been prepared for the possibility of Peter getting kidnapped someday.Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier when it actually happens.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 30
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, this is a story that I started working on purely for kicks but has gotten a more than a little wedged into my mind since, so here we are. I'm excited to see where it goes, and I'm excited to hear what you guys think of it. Thanks for clicking!
> 
> Title from You Get What You Give by New Radicals, and I hope you enjoy the read!

“Alright, one more time. This is it. Don’t let me down now, bud.”

DUM-E chirps encouragingly, waiting a few feet away with a plastic bucket held in his claw. The other bots gather around the two of them in lieu of an audience, U holding a white board while Butterfingers is positioned beside him with a dry erase marker, and FRIDAY has been recording their efforts for the past 20 minutes. U’s board is divided into two halves by a shaky line, the left side reading _BALL_ in Tony’s handwriting with 14 tally marks of varying lengths, widths, and steadiness beneath it while the right reads _TONY._ At the moment, there’s an entirely pathetic lack of tally marks on the right. 

Tony’s determined to change that.

He takes a breath, getting his feet in position, finding a comfortable grip on his tennis ball. Metallica is already blasting over the lab speakers at nearly eardrum-shattering volumes, as it has been since the beginning of hour five, but now that he’s nearing the end of his eighth consecutive hour in the lab with far too little human interaction and far too much coffee, Tony’s thinking of turning it up louder, just for funzies.

But first, ballin’.

He settles into his stance, feeling as prepared as he’s gonna get, and glances at DUM-E with a raised eyebrow. “We ready?”

The bot beeps in the affirmative. 

Tony throws. 

The ball lands it with such a powerful thud that DUM-E nearly drops the bucket. 

And fuck, if that isn’t satisfying as all hell. 

Beeping in celebration, DUM-E rolls towards Tony, returning the ball like a dog with a stick. Off to the side, Butterfingers turns to U, and very carefully draws a single, slightly crooked tally mark under the _TONY_ side of the white board. U chirps in congratulations in return.

“Best out of 30, boss?” FRIDAY asks, her voice loud over the music.

Tony throws her nearest camera a grin. “You bet, sweetheart.”

Ninth hour of semi-voluntary solitary confinement, here he comes. 

His smile fades a little at that thought.

The entire week has been quiet, honestly, and despite the fact that Tony hasn’t gone this far into hermit-mode in a long while (his ability to be alone essentially disappeared after he got married and made the mistake of befriending a clingy teenager with no concept of personal space) it’s been a nice change of pace. He hasn’t gotten the chance to hunker down and crank out suit upgrades and new designs like this for months. Catching up can be fucking euphoric when its done right.

However, now that the week is coming to a close and he’s struggling to remember the last time he looked another human being in the eye, he’s beginning to look forward to Pepper coming home tomorrow. 

She’s been off in Taiwan on business since last Wednesday, and with Rhodey in DC this week, Happy in Chicago, and Peter in mid-finals season, Tony’s been spending a lot of quality time with the bots and FRIDAY these past few days. And it really has been nice —he’s gotten so much fucking _work_ done, fuck _yeah_— but he’s starting to miss the group of them. He actually tried to teach DUM-E how to play poker yesterday. He’s reached that point. 

He doesn’t do so well with being alone these days. That’s kind of a new thing, considering how much time he spent alone until the people who now make up his life barged in and made themselves comfortable, but it’s not really a bad thing.

It’s just a mildly annoying thing now that he actually has to entertain himself again. 

He drops into the nearest chair, messing with the ball in his hands as DUM-E noisily rolls over to U, admiring the board and Tony’s single, hard won tally mark. God, yeah, now that’s he’s thinking about it, he really can’t wait for Pepper to get home. Call him crazy, but after playing solo this week, the whole bachelor shtick is starting to sound straight up shitty.

Jesus, marriage really does change you. 

He’s barely even talked to Pepper this week too, which doesn’t help the situation. With Taiwan being twelve hours ahead of New York, their schedules haven’t been matching up too well, and he’s missing her voice. And, even more than that, he just misses having her around. He misses _her._ And Rhodey. And Happy. And _Peter,_ god, he never realized how much he appreciated Peter’s overenthusiastic and hyperactive presence in the lab until the kid suddenly got all responsible on him and retreated into his room for studying a few days back and has barely come up for air since. He’s been out and about for patrol most nights, but Tony’s hardly seen the kid since last Saturday’s impromptu Mario Kart tournament, and he’s been missing Peter like all hell recently. 

God, he needs more friends.

Friends over the age of 16, preferably. 

DUM-E starts chirping again as he rolls over to Tony, still holding his bucket and nudging Tony’s knee with it gently but insistently, wanting to go another round. When Tony holds up the ball, his chirping turns to excited whirring, and he backs up slightly, as if in preparation. 

Tony can’t help the laugh. “You like this that much?”

DUM-E beeps brightly in the affirmative. 

Just as he’s about to get up and give in, FRIDAY’s voice comes across the speakers again, but this time, she cuts Metallica out entirely. “Boss, Karen is requesting communication.”

Shit, it’s like he summoned him. “Put her through,” he says, sitting back in his chair. He drops the ball in DUM-E’s bucket again to buy himself a few minutes. Sure enough, it appeases the bot, and he starts whirring excitedly as he rolls off towards the others again, the ball thudding around the plastic confines with DUM-E’s turns.

There’s a pause, and then a click, and Tony knows that Karen has taken over. He’s a second away from greeting her when the voice on the other end beats him to it. 

_”So this is the elusive Tony Stark, hmm?”_

As it happens, that voice most definitely does not belong to Peter. 

And, well, _fuck,_ because that really can’t be good. 

Tony looks up sharply, not getting too worked up yet but not hesitating with getting wary as the bots themselves seem to quiet, realizing that something potentially shifty’s happening just by the drop in atmosphere. DUM-E slows to a stop with the bucket still in his claw. “Who the hell is this?” 

_”Ah, an unimportant detail,”_ the man says breezily, and with a pointed jerk of his head, Tony has FRIDAY pulling up the suit tracker, trying to figure out where Peter is and who has the absolute audacity to speak through his mask the way this fucker is. Peter’s vitals, pulled up from his watch, begin loading on the screen closest to him as well, just to make sure. _”I must say, I’m sorry we have to meet in such a fashion —I truly was looking forward to gaining your acquaintance in a more… traditional manner— but we must make do, I suppose.”_

“I’d rather make do while knowing who I’m talking to,” Tony returns. On the screens around him, FRIDAY displays the search efforts. She runs into blocking mechanisms, which Tony was somewhat expecting, but after the homecoming fiasco last September, he’s wised up in the ways of savvy teenagers (and, in this case, unidentified dicks like this dude right here), and she’s already starting the override codes now. He’s just gotta give her the chance to let them go through first.

On the bright side, though, Peter’s vitals have come up, and they’re normal. His heart rate and blood pressure are both a bit elevated, sure, but he’s also in honors english right now, so that little uptick is pretty ordinary for this time of day. For as fantastic as the kid is with numbers and shit, words tend to stress him out, ironic as that one is. 

But the kid’s safe. That’s the important part here.

Something uncomfortably tight in Tony’s chest loosens at that confirmation.

_”Pushy,”_ the man chuckles. _”And so quick. We barely even know each other, Mr Stark. There’s no need to rush things.”_

“I’m not known for taking things slow.” 

_”I suppose you’re not,”_ the man returns, sounding mildly amused. _”We’ll get to my name later, I assure you, but in the meantime, I must say, it’s quite nice to finally learn Spider-Man’s. I have been wondering for some time now.” _ There’s a brief pause where the man sighs, contented and savoring. _”Peter Parker, hmm? It does have quite the ring to it.”_

And that’s when the alarm first starts to spike. 

Tony sits up, his gaze darting back to Peter’s vitals for reassurance, but they still haven’t changed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, forcing his voice to stay steady. 

Quietly, his phone in his lap, he calls Peter. It goes straight to voicemail.

_”Oh, don’t play coy.”_ He laughs, throaty but light, as if he knows something Tony doesn’t. As if he’s holding something over Tony’s head, dangling and dangerous, but only letting him see the shadow, letting him realize that there’s a risk but keeping the rest just out of range. _”We both know that I’m correct. Peter Parker, Midtown High School sophomore, and, of course, all of fifteen years old. Just a boy, really.”_

FRIDAY’s override codes still have a few moments of loading before the suit location will be available. Tony watches every little bit of progress with a determinedly calm sort of intensity, his hands clenched around the armrests of the chair. Peter’s heartbeat still reads steady. “Peter Parker’s an intern here,” he says, mindlessly, automatically, the long practiced response to such questions coming as easy and natural as breathing. “I’ve barely talked to the guy, but I know enough about him to tell you that there’s no way he’s Spider-Man.” 

_”Oh, but that’s your cover, isn’t it? Yet I still know the truth. Wouldn’t you like to know how?”_

Tony doesn’t respond. FRIDAY’s nearly cracked the blockers. Only a minute left for the code to go through, maybe.

_”He told me.”_

Tony stays silent.

_”I told him I’d kill his aunt if he didn’t tell me his identity, and my, that was all it took. Some old security footage and a threat. But unfortunately, he’s since entirely refused to give me any information that I truly need. I’m afraid he’s decided to take the martyr path.”_ There’s a sigh, low and grating. _”So here I am, turning to you instead. I trust both of you will come to realize his mistake rather quickly.”_

And despite his best attempts to keep it together, despite how he knows everything this guy’s saying is relative until they have evidence towards or against anything he’s claiming, Tony chokes on his next inhale.

He could be faking. God, he could be faking, he could be bullshitting it all, he could have dug up Peter’s identity some other way and spun this in some sort of fucked up attempt to shake Tony up and get something he wants him from him— he could be faking, this could be _fake—_

This doesn’t have to mean what Tony’s _so fucking afraid_ it means. 

God, it doesn’t. 

Abruptly, Peter’s vitals spike so high that they cause an alarm to rip through the workshop. His heart rate soars, blood pressure and respiration meets flying up to meet it, his instant and extreme distress evident in every number currently flashing on the screen. Then, as quickly as they jumped, they disappear entirely, going flat. 

The watch has been turned off. 

And god, it _does._

“You son of a bitch,” Tony whispers. 

The man breathes a laugh. _”My, finally. I knew this child meant something to you. That'll make all that's coming quite a bit more fun, won't it?”_ He chuckles lightly. _”But anyway, I really must be going. Your boy must be missing me by now. Be sure to stay near your computer, won't you, Mr Stark?"_

The call disconnects just as the Spider-Man suit’s location pops up on screen. 

It reads as being less than a foot away from the doorstep of the compound. 

“FRIDAY,” Tony murmurs, not moving. 

“Already on it, boss,” FRIDAY returns, and an armor is instantaneously being sent outside to retrieve the suit, to bring it in and see what condition its in. Barely a moment later, the armor returns. Tony stands to take the suit, folded into a neat square, from the hands of the Iron Man suit, and once he’s holding it himself, he lets it fall open, his own hands shaking just slightly. 

There’s a tear through the chest, right over the heart, with a single safety pin holding the two edges together.

A note is pinned there as well, a small hole pushed through the snowy white paper and pressed flat against the fabric of the suit. It reads, in clean, tidy handwriting, _check your inbox._

Automatically, FRIDAY pulls up his personal email on one of the nearest screens, where the newest unopened message sits patiently at the top of the list, without a subject and without a sender. The blue unread dot seems to burn it’s indention into Tony’s eyes. He can feel his heartbeat pounding in his fingertips, the suit still resting in his hands, cold from the chill outside. 

“Open it,” he says hoarsely. 

FRIDAY silently obeys, and she plays the included audio file without prompting. 

The sound of Peter’s screams fill the workshop. 

The video is shut off as quickly as it began, but Tony’s already dropped the suit like it’s burned him, the fabric hitting the concrete of the workshop floor with a dull thud. The blood rushes in his ears, and he feels like he can barely see, barely think, barely process anything other than the ice cold panic flooding his veins and the way his hands are suddenly trembling so hard that the shocks seem to travel all the way up his shoulders. He stumbles away from the screens, tripping over his own feet, grapples for his phone. FRIDAY already has Rhodey’s contact pulled up. He slams the call button.

Rhodey picks up on the second ring, bright and cheerful, and Tony thuds back against the nearest lab table in order to stay upright. 

“Peter’s gone,” he interrupts him, breathless and rushed. “Someone— _Jesus,_ Rhodey, somebody has the kid.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, seriously, I forgot how much fun multichapters are. Thanks for making it even funner with the feedback. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and enjoy!!

The compound is stuffed full of people before the day ends. 

Tony barely pays attention to any of them. 

Instead, he paces from computer to computer, from screen to screen, his phone constantly trapped between his shoulder and his ear. He contacts anyone he can think of. He makes call after call to Midtown High, to the Parkers’ neighbors, to the cafe down the street that Peter likes to stop at on his way to school, to anyone and everyone who might have seen the kid today and who might be able to help them. He walks with his hands in his pockets, tense as hell and feeling about as friendly, shooting at absolute daggers at anyone who dares to approach him with anything other than new information. His steps beat out a tattoo against the tile. 

They’re pulling all stops on this one. 

Rhodey came down from DC with a small army of military personnel, and now they’ve all settled down around Tony’s equipment with Rhodey directing the group of them around with wire-taught authority. They’re using security footage, they’re using facial recognition technology, they’re using whatever the hell they can to try to figure out where the kid is. 

They don’t get any new audio files, but they do their best to track the one they’ve already got, and the phone call itself. There’s a few false leads before they realize that they’re not going to learn anything from either of them.

The one thing they’ve got going for them, and it turns out to be shit. 

Peter’s been missing for nearly 24 hours now and Tony’s gonna fucking throat punch the next person who tells him to take a break.

Because, the thing is, there were so many measures Tony took from the very beginning to make sure they never found themselves in this situation. He’s always been prepared for the possibility of Peter getting kidnapped someday— with the life Tony leads and the life Peter’s gotten pulled into as a result, it was almost probable. Tony’s always known that. 

So he took every opportunity he could think of to keep the kid safe. There’s countless precautions and safety measures; trackers in the suit, updated security at their apartment, constant surveillance on Midtown High. Peter doesn’t even know about most of them, but they’ve always been there all the same, right from the first time Tony looked at him and realized that this brilliant dork of a kid was something special, something to protect. 

This was never meant to happen. 

But it did, it’s happening right this goddamn second, and Tony can’t do a fucking thing to make it better. 

The tracker in the suit is useless when Peter’s not wearing it. The security at the apartment was great until the kidnapping ended up taking place after Peter left that morning. The surveilance on Midtown High was fucking brilliant idea, but then Peter never made it to Midtown High yesterday, and all of Tony’s preventative measures are suddenly doing an absolute, undeniable _fuck all_ to find the kid and fix this hellscape of a situation.

Tony scrubs a hand over his mouth, rough against yesterday’s stubble, and dials another number. 

May is here too, has been since the very beginning of this shitstorm, and honestly, she’s holding up better than Tony is. She’s worried, he knows, but she’s been channeling it all into productive energy, and despite the fact that she can’t do much with the tech they’re using, she’s been a gigantic help with everything else. She’s been fantastic with coming up with more people to contact and more places to check. She’s been fantastic in general, really. 

He doesn’t know how she does it. 

As for everyone else, they’re all doing what they can too. Pepper’s rushing back from Taiwan now, cutting short her business trip to instead come home and be present in whatever ways she can for anyone who might need her, and Happy’s on a plane back now from Chicago. And Rhodey, god, Rhodey’s been the one to orchestrate all of this. He’s responsible for every little bit of progress they’ve managed to make so far.

Even if the progress is barely enough to be considered progress.

Because, for fuck’s sake, this guy they’re dealing with is better than anyone was counting on. They know approximately nothing about him, but he’s good as all hell about covering up his tracks and erasing any trace he might have left with any of this. They watch all the security videos they can think of, go through any and every bit of activity Peter had that morning, but everything seems normal until the kid goes missing in the crowd at one point and just doesn’t turn back up. That’s where it ends. That’s what they’ve got. That’s _it,_ and it’s well on its way to costing Tony his composure.

Tony was around when May had to have the phone conversation with the kid’s best friend last night, when Ned called to make sure Peter was okay. Listening to the two of them was enough to drive another white hot spike of guilt and worry into his gut. He left the room before he could catch the end. 

God, they can’t lose this kid. 

He can’t lose this fucking kid.

He paces another circuit around the lab as he talks to the owner of the little Italian place on the corner of Peter’s block, asking if anyone happened to see a kid matching his description yesterday morning. The conversation ends in Italian, with the owner apologizing for the fact that no, no one saw him, but he hopes that he’s okay, he’s always been such a kind boy, helping him with the trash on rainy days, always so kind, and he is okay, isn’t he? 

Tony surprises himself by the surge of anger that comes at the question, the surge of terrified, terrified anger, because he realizes that he has no idea of how to respond.

Because god, this guy has the fucking audacity to _ask_ something like that and Tony has no goddamn idea of how to respond because he can’t say yes without lying and he can’t say no without breaking, and god, what does he tell him? What the hell does he say to that? 

He stops his pacing near the wall after he hangs up, slowing down for just a moment to take a breather, try and calm down. His head pounds.

That’s the other thing about all of this. With all of the calls Tony’s been making, with all the contact he’s had with all the people who make up Peter Parker’s world, he’s coming increasingly aware of just how goddamn _loved_ this kid is. He hasn’t even heard of half the people he’s speaking to but boy, do they know Peter. Nearly everyone he’s called has all but gushed about the kid. The owners of the shops lining his street, the Midtown teachers, the workers doing repairs down the block from his apartment. Even if they don’t know Peter’s name, they know _Peter,_ and are all now very worried about his whereabouts. 

Not for the first time, it occurs to Tony that Spider-Man truly isn’t an alter ego or a secret identity or a role to play. The guy is literally Peter Parker with a mask, and the effect the kid has on people remains the same no matter what name he’s going by.

Fuck, they needed him back yesterday. 

As he starts walking again, he lowers his phone for just long enough to catch Rhodey staring at him across the room, his forehead creased in worry and eyes concerned in a long practiced, long exasperated sort of way. Before Tony can look away, pretend they didn’t make eye contact like they just did and punch another number in his phone and walk faster to discourage the conversation he knows Rhodey’s been waiting to have, Rhodey’s already pushed himself up from his chair, steps thunking against the tile as he crosses the room, and Tony knows he’s done for.

When he reaches him, he takes Tony’s phone from his hand and presses a steady hand between his shoulder blades. “We’re going for a walk,” he says, not unkindly, and gently but firmly ushers him out of the room. 

Leaving the computer lab is a weird experience. Tony’s been holed up here since yesterday morning, trapped between the same white walls and caged by the same blinking screens for hours upon hours but unable to bring himself to leave despite the wide open door because, seriously, the second he let himself think was the second that the thoughts he’d been just barely keeping at bay broke the dam and went batshit on his fragile ass, and he knew it. 

However, leaving with Rhodey is different, somehow. Just another reason to thank whatever deity listening for one James Rhodes, because Tony knows for a fact that he’d be six feet under six times over right now if it wasn’t for this man. 

Shit, it’s been a long day.

Rhodey steers them down the hallway, probably without a real target in mind but putting distance between them and the lab all the same. It’s quiet out here, almost alarmingly so in comparison to the noise and action of the computer lab, but it’s reassuring all the same, calm and still and steady with no one out here but Rhodey and himself. Tony’s hands have started shaking for no apparent reason, but he feels like he can breathe better out here than he ever did in there. 

Eventually, Rhodey finds a pair of chairs resting against the wall. They sit down there, Rhodey’s braces creaking and Tony’s knees cracking with the motion. Rhodey glances over at him. “What’re you thinking?”

“Hell if I know,” Tony says flatly. He rolls his neck as he eases back in the chair; the position he’s been holding with his phone hasn’t been kind to him. “Just trying to figure out what else there is to do. What else I can do to help.” 

Rhodey sighs, sitting back as well with a wince. He’s been in a similar predicament as Tony as far as physical discomfort goes, having been stuffed into a desk chair since yesterday, and the cushion this one offers in comparison is probably a nice change of pace. “We’ve got our best guys on this, Tones. Considering the situation, Peter’s got everything going for him in terms of search efforts. There’s not much more to do that we’re not already doing.”

“I know,” Tony says. “Fuck, I know. And thank you for that.”

There’s a pause. Rhodey lets the silence linger for the moment, because he and Tony have been close enough for long enough for him to be able to recognize the signs of Tony’s mind working, getting ready to say something important that he doesn’t want to say but has to nonetheless, and he knows not to rush it. Instead, he just sits back in his chair, watching Tony with a quiet sort of anticipation.

Then, softly, so softly, in a tone of voice that suggests he knows exactly what’s happening, exactly what’s going through Tony’s head, exactly how close to breaking he is, he says, “Tony.”

And _god._

God, this is exactly what Tony was trying to avoid by staying in the lab. There, feeling productive, he was able to keep all this shit at bay. Here, his body finally stagnant and his mind finally freed up, the thoughts are harder to push back, the emotions that have been threatening to spill over since yesterday morning surging and leaving Tony without a single fucking thing to protect himself with.

He doesn’t try to hide it. Rhodey would see past it anyway. 

So he just swallows hard, keeping his head tilted back, eyes trained on the ceiling. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself if we don’t find him,” he says, finally breaking the silence, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I have no fucking idea what I’m gonna do.”

“We’ll find him.”

“You can’t say that for sure,” Tony returns, sharper than he means to. “This guy’s _good,_ Rhodey. We’ve been working this for a full day now and we’ve still got jack shit to work off of. We both know that’s not a great sign.”

He still doesn’t look at him, but he can hear Rhodey’s sigh all the same, can imagine his expression. “You’re not wrong,” he says, after a moment. “I can’t. But what I _can_ say is that we’ve got a real good chance of finding this kid, especially with who we have working this, and until we do, there’s no use in giving up.”

Tony swallows hard again and refuses to look at him, because he’s _right,_ of course he’s right, but god, Tony can already feel the tears building, the pressure in his face and the burning in his eyes an indication enough of that, and he doesn’t want to lose hope but he doesn’t want to gain it either. Doesn’t want to be blindsided by a possibility that might become truth without something there to shield him from the blow. 

He’s about to say that, to spill it all to Rhodey and try to keep the tears from spilling with it, but then he opens his mouth and all that comes out is “I can’t lose him, Rhodey.”

And fuck, if that doesn’t sum it all up. 

He’s suddenly aware that he’s a second away from losing it. He blinks hard, feels the tears spill over, quiet and ridiculous as they are, his hands abruptly clenched around the armrests of the seat. His breath hitches harder than he’s expecting on the next inhale.

Rhodey’s voice is soft. “I know.”

“I can’t lose this kid.”

“I know.”

Finally, finally, he turns to look at Rhodey, feeling so raw and stupid and dramatic but terrified all the same, exhausted past the point of embarrassment and too familiar with Rhodey anyway to even bother. “This is my fault,” he says. “I’m the one who got him into all of this. He got snatched for leverage on me, Rhodey. If— if something— happens to him— that we can’t bring him _back_ from—” 

“Tony—”

“If something _happens,_ then that’s on _me.”_ His stutters hard on his next breath. “That’s on me.”

Rhodey looks at him for a second, forehead creased and mouth a thin line of worry, before tugging him to his feet. “C’mere.”

He hugs him then, and it’s goddamn _stupid_ how comforting it is. Rhodey hugs tight —he always has— and Tony takes the opportunity to bury his face in Rhodey’s shoulder and breathe through it the best he can. He’s not how long they stand there for, but once Tony feels at least slightly less likely to shatter to absolute pieces at any given moment, he pulls away. 

Rhodey is still watching him with that quiet, worried look, but his eyes are intense all the same, his shoulders resting on Tony’s shoulders for just a moment longer than necessary. “Hey, real fast, listen to me,” he says, gentle but firm. “We’re gonna find this kid. We will.”

Tony nods, believing him as much as he dares. 

***

Tony’s phone dings out a reminder at the 36 hour mark. 

He turns off the alarm almost before it can sound and goes back to scanning security footage. His hands shake on the keyboard.

***

At hour 44, they find a guy’s vlog from the morning of the kidnapping. He’s completely oblivious to everything going on around him as he walks to work in the video, talking into his headphones microphone despite the chaos and noise of the NYC streets, but, for just a flash of a moment, Peter walks by him. 

It’s fast, but it’s undeniable. The kid passes by in the background of the video, his earbuds tucked into his ears and his head up, backpack slung neatly over his shoulders on his way to school. It’s barely a second that he’s on screen. But the video was recorded after they lost Peter on the security cams, and it’s the most progress they’ve made in two days, and it’s _enough._

May starts crying when they show her. The guy who found it, still sitting in his fatigues at the computer, does a silent sign of the cross, sitting back heavily in his chair like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

Suddenly, hope is back in the air like it never quite left.

After that, it’s a mad dash to scan everyone else who appears in the video, trying to trace any one of them back to the guy they’re looking for. Rhodey and Tony sit there for hours, poring over the computer, searching for anything or everything that might be able to lead them to Peter. Every single person who has even half an instant of screen time is run through facial recognition technology, given a thorough background check, examined so deeply and personally that it’s probably edging on illegal or going against government favor at the very least but hell, Rhodey’s the one who’s doing most of it, and considering Rhodey pretty much _is_ the government these days, something tells Tony that they’ve got immunity here. 

Most of the people in the video come up clean, of course. But there’s this one man they find, passing through the video a handful of seconds after Peter does, walking with his hands in his pockets and an odd expression on his face, and there’s just something about him that has both Rhodey and Tony doing a little extra digging than strictly necessary. They look him up, find his name, find his history.

They find out that he was an Oscorp employee. 

That’s all they need to know they’ve got their guy.

They find his address, his license plate numbers, everything and anything they can about him. It takes until hour 46 to trace his location to an abandoned house on the edges of New York. Until hour 47 to gather a team, suit up, get fully prepared for whatever they might be encountering. 

Until hour 48 before they’re in the air, on their way to go and get their kid back.

Tony can’t push the suit fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> See you guys in a few days :)


End file.
